On Mon, 14 Jun 1999 14:34:51 -0600, Susan Brassfield wrote:
[...]
>SJ>The word "evolution" (as it is used in science today) asserts or implies that
>>the processes of biological origins and development were *undirected*,
>>*purposeless*, natural processes. Thus the original 1995 official Position
>>Statement of the American National Association of Biology Teachers
>>stated what "evolution" really means in the scientific literature today:
>>
>>"The diversity of life on earth is the outcome of evolution: an unsupervised,
>>impersonal, unpredictable and natural process of temporal descent with
>>genetic modification that is affected by natural selection, chance,
>>historical contingencies and changing environments." (National Association of
>>Biology Teachers, 1995 Statement on Teaching Evolution, in Johnson
>>P.E., "Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds," 1997, p15).
[...]
SB>as you know, but fail to mention, the above statement was altered by the
>Association and the words "unspervised...natural process" were deleted.
As Susan knows, but fails to mention, I said "...the *original* 1995 official
Position Statement..."! I took it for granted that everybody on this list
knows that the original statement was watered down by the NABT under pressure
from Eugenie Scott of the NCSE because it confirmed Johnson's critique. I
quoted the original position because it is what the NABT *really* still
believes.
SB>And rightly so. If some mythological figure is supervising and directing
>evolution, he/she/it is doing it in such a way that it is undetectable and
>unmeasurable.
Susan again reveals her prejudice here. Because she is convinced
that God must be "mythological figure" then of course He is "undetectable
and unmeasurable" *to her*. As Grasse says: "if people wilfully close their
eyes to it, they will not see." (Grasse P.-P., "Evolution of Living Organisms,"
1977, p218)
If God the Intelligent Designer is *real* then the evidence that she *thinks*
is "evolution" is really evidence of *mediate creation.*
SB>To say that such a figure is *not* doing it is ridiculous
>and also unsupportable.
Agreed. But I am *not* saying what God is not doing. I am saying what God
*is* doing! I am proposing a positive general theory of Mediate Creation,
not just a negative attack on Darwinian evolution.
SB>There is no scientific evidence for or against the
>interference by Kali, Zeus, or whoever
Note again Susan's prejudice is revealed by her question-begging
choice of words. If it is *God* intervening in His own created universe,
then it is not "interference":
"It is therefore inaccurate to define a miracle as something that
breaks the laws of Nature. It doesn't. If I knock out my pipe I
alter the position of a great many atoms: in the long run, and to an
infinitesimal degree, of all the atoms there are. Nature digests or
assimilates this event with perfect ease and harmonises it in a
twinkling with all other events. It is one more bit of raw material
for the laws to apply to and they apply. I have simply thrown one
event into the general cataract of events and it finds itself at home
there and conforms to all other events. If God annihilates or creates
or deflects a unit of matter He has created a new situation at that
point. Immediately all Nature domiciles this new situation, makes it
at home in her realm, adapts all other events to it." (Lewis C.S.,
"Miracles," 1963, p63)
SB>in the natural process of evolution
More question-begging! That it was "evolution" is the point at
dispute on this listserv.
SB>and therefore outside the realm of science.
This criterion is meaningless since "science" has been deliberately
*redefined* as applied materialistic-naturalism, in order to rule out
*in advance* evidence for an Intelligent Designer. In such a case
naturalism wins by default, but it is a hollow and unconvincing
victory:
"The deployment of flawed or metaphysically tendentious demarcation
arguments against legitimate theoretical contenders has produced an
unjustified confidence in the epistemic standing of much evolutionary
dogma...If competing hypotheses are eliminated before they are evaluated,
remaining theories may acquire an undeserved dominance." (Meyer S.C., in
Moreland J.P. ed., "The Creation Hypothesis," 1994, p100)
Steve
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"...it is the Christian world which finally gave birth in a clear articulate
fashion to the experimental method of science itself...It is surely one of the
curious paradoxes of history that science which professionally has little to
do with faith, owes its origins to an act of faith that the universe can be
rationally interpreted, and that science today-is sustained by that
assumption." (Eiseley L., "Darwin's Century: Evolution and the Men Who
Discovered It," [1958], Anchor Books: Doubleday & Co: Garden City NY,
1961, reprint, p62)
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